


Bounce

by gallifreyburning



Category: Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Genre: F/M, Holiday Fic Exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 10:31:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5493977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gallifreyburning/pseuds/gallifreyburning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Holiday gift exchanges with the Bolotnikovs</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bounce

**Author's Note:**

  * For [devbneo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/devbneo/gifts).



> Written as part of the Jupiter Ascending secret santa fic exchange! This story is for [devbneo](http://devbneo.tumblr.com), who provided the excellent prompt "Caine’s rapturous love of tennis balls."

The fact that Vladie pushes for a white elephant gift exchange doesn’t raise too many red flags. He’s the sort who pilfers the cleaning business supply shelves in the basement for gifts; Jupiter has a very clear memory of unwrapping a promisingly-sized box when she was ten, only to be crestfallen at the Swiffer inside. So any giving arrangement that allows him to go the lazy route, only managing responsibility for one gift, something ridiculous and cheap instead of heartfelt, is entirely in character.

What _is_ out of character is his reaction when he draws a name from the teddy-bear cookie jar, after Nino mixes up the slips of paper and marches around the living room from one Bolotnikov to another. He seems worried, dancing around the other members of the family with the same fretful edginess he’d displayed during the summer, when he owed money to Iosif and his brothers.

Except this time, instead of avoiding his usual dive bars in an effort to dodge money-collecting thugs, Vladie is avoiding Caine. Any time Jupiter brings him to visit, Vladie vanishes in a quiet flurry of flannel and cheap cologne, creeping out the back without a word of goodbye.

It would be easy enough to pull Vladie aside and suggest that he buy Caine the new X-Men comic (he prefers Wolverine), or a copy of the movie version of _Pride and Prejudice_ ("I'm studying the mating rituals of your people, majesty," he'd explained when she found him watching _Emma_ one afternoon, and a few days later she noticed  _The Complete Works of Jane Austen_ on one of his sheaves). Jupiter could tip Vladie off to any number of Caine's hobbies, but truthfully she enjoys seeing her cousin squirm. It’s like a Christmas present in and of itself, watching him fall to pieces trying to figure out what to buy an alien marine.

On Christmas morning, Jupiter gives Irina the bottle of Chanel No 5 she’s been coveting. Caine sits in sheepish silence while Aleksa pulls garish blue and silver paper off of a tiny wooden box. Inside is a sapphire the size of a robin’s egg, suspended from filigreed ore in a web if antigravity waves. The necklace glows, humming quietly as Aleksa lifts it out of the box and the family stares in openmouthed shock.

Caine mistakes their astonishment for silent disappointment. His voice is low with shame as he explains, “Jupiter offered to give me money to buy something nicer, but I thought it would be more appropriate to spend my own funds. I couldn’t afford much, I’m sorry it isn’t an iolite shale. The merchant swore even though the stone was worthless, the setting is good craftsmanship.”

“I could buy the Sears Tower with this rock,” Aleksa sputters, her cheeks the same color crimson as the tips of Caine’s ears. He glances at Jupiter, eyes wide with mortification.

“Here,” she says too loudly, shoving a cylindrically-shaped present into Caine’s hands, labeled _To: Caine_ and _From: Vladie_. Caine peels away the paper with the delicate care of a surgeon opening up a patient.

Inside is a three-pack of Penn tennis balls, garish and yellow in their plastic can. The room goes deathly quiet as eight sets of eyes swivel back and forth between Vladie and the Caine. Vladie looks like he might be the first human to accomplish the feat of melting directly into the couch cushions in fear. Caine lifts an eyebrow at Jupiter, a silent inquiry.

Jupiter ought to be outraged on Caine’s behalf, she ought to throw those tennis balls right at Vladie’s head. But she’s warm from too many glasses of Vassily’s special eggnog, and tingling with giddiness over her first holiday with Caine as part of her family, and she dissolves into helpless giggles instead.

When the two of them are alone later in Caine's bunk on his ship, naked and sweating and sated, he asks about the significance of the gift.

“It's equipment for an Earth sport called tennis. The goal is to bounce a ball back and forth across a net, using a racket.” She props her head up on her arm, watching his reaction.

“Your cousin wants to play this sport with me?” Caine has gone completely still, a line carved between his eyebrows, as though the idea stresses him out. Which seems weird, because Jupiter would be delighted to watch a match, if only for the spectacle of Caine using his wings on a tennis court, and Vassily collapsing in exhaustion halfway through the first set.

She clears her throat delicately. “I think he meant the gift as a joke.”

“Oh.” Caine’s body relaxes, and he lets out a huff of air that might be a sigh of relief.

“You were worried about having to pretend to lose to him, weren’t you?” she asks.

He tucks one hand behind his head and stares pointedly upward. Multicolored lights twinkle on the ceiling, strung there in one of Jupiter’s fits of holiday spirit last week (determined to humor her, Caine had spent twenty minutes splicing the lights into his ship's power cells). Instead of answering her question, he asks one of his own: “If he didn’t want to play tennis, why did he gift me the equipment?”

“Tennis balls are also a thing. Um. A thing that domesticated wolves enjoy chasing? For exercise and agility?” She bites her lip, resting a hand against his bare chest, a preemptory move to calm him down. “It was a bad joke.”

“Domesticated wolf.” He repeats the phrase deadpan, and Jupiter wonders if there’s some sort of translation error through his language module. “In the rest of the gyre, we call that a dog.” Her throat tightens, embarrassment at her family swelling through her chest. Before she can say anything, he continues, “Do you think I’m domesticated?”

One side of her mouth lifts a fraction. “Do you want to be?”

“Hmm.” He moves suddenly, flipping her over onto her back and kissing his way from her neck down her chest, until he’s positioned his head between her legs. Staring up at her, he runs his tongue across his sharp canines and grins. “I draw the line at playing fetch, your majesty.”

Jupiter’s laughter cuts off with a low moan, and she drops her head back and closes her eyes.

On New Year’s Eve afternoon, she and Caine take Moltka to a nearby park. There’s too much family and too much vodka at Vassily’s house, and she’s certain that if she doesn't get Caine some room to breathe, he’s going to end up perched on the roof for all the neighborhood to see.

A morning’s worth of snowfall has left a perfect layer of white across the ground, just thick enough to be beautiful without being dangerous. Moltka wastes no time scooping up a healthy handful of the perfectly wet fluff, compacting it into a ball, and flinging it at Jupiter’s head.

Before she even has time to duck, Caine leaps to the side and intercepts the snowball. He catches it in one hand, slush spraying across Jupiter’s face as the ball disintegrates on impact. She squeals and scoops up a lump of her own snow to toss back at her cousin, using Caine for cover.

Three minutes into the snowball fight, it’s patently obvious that Caine is far less interested in throwing anything, and far more interested in catching. Jupiter and Moltka stop aiming at each other and target Caine instead. He bounds across the small park, wings twitching instinctively under his coat as snowballs sail overhead, just out of reach even after he leaps for them. He pivots and dashes after the last white sphere, executing a sliding dive that any major league player would admire.

Grinning with smug satisfaction, he leaps to his feet and shakes snow from his head, brandishing the errant snowball. Moltka claps in delight, and Jupiter beams, skidding her way across the park to give him an enthusiastic victory hug. 

The next day, she finds his tennis balls in the middle of his quarters, left precisely where she would stumble over them. 

"We could take a walk. To the park," he says, avoiding her eyes. "If you'd like."

"I'd definitely like that," she replies, popping onto her tiptoes to plant a kiss at the corner of his mouth, and then bending down to pick up the can. 


End file.
